1st July (Issue 503)

Welcome to the Origin Capital Weekly Irish Property Review. This update is designed to provide you with a full recap of the latest property news from the media over the last seven days.

Mixed Use

Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 Numbers 47 and 49 Northumberland Road, two adjoining properties at the junction with St Mary’s Road, are being offered to the market by Knight Frank with the benefit of full vacant possession at a guide of €5m. The buildings were converted around 40 years ago to their present use as an educational facility. The properties have the potential to be converted into a boutique hotel, a high-end apartment development, an office headquarters, an embassy, or two city residences. The accommodation extends to 9,472 sq. ft over three floors, with both properties interconnecting on each level. The buildings have been well maintained and retain numerous original period details. Numbers 47 and 49 have a southwest-facing garden which is laid out as a play area for the school, with direct access off St Mary’s Road. The Irish Times, 25^th June

Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow Lidl has been refused planning permission for the development of a mixed-use, town centre scheme anchored by a discount food store in Kilcoole. It was the third refusal, having submitted a revised proposal in September last year, following an unsuccessful application in February 2023. The application relates to a single storey building with a mezzanine plant deck for the food store supermarket with ancillary off-licence use, over a total floor space of approx. 27,000 sq. ft. The scheme also includes the delivery of a café and a terrace of five two-bedroom, two-storey homes, which is intended to be completed on a phased basis. However, the council considered the proposed development “would not represent an efficient and sustainable use of zoned lands in a town centre” and was not in keeping with national and local planning policy objectives”. The Irish Independent, 30^th June

Retail

Henry Street, Dublin 1 Colliers is guiding €2.6m for number 17 Henry Street. The property, two doors down from Arnotts, comprises a five-storey over-basement building of 5,144 sq. ft, which includes 1,658 sq. ft of ground-floor retail space. The property is fully let to David Fun Max Limited, trading as Gifty, a mobile and electronics retailer. The Henry Street lease commenced in November 2024, for a term of 10 years, at a contracted rent of €200,000 pa. A tenant break option is in place at the end of year six. Sports Direct and Zara are due to open new flagship stores in the coming months within the former Debenhams department store premises, which is undergoing redevelopment. Should a sale proceed at the €2.6m price, the new owner would be in line for a net initial yield of 7%. The Irish Times, 25^th June

Purpose Built Student Accommodation

87-93 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1 Dublin City Council has given the green light to Summix Capital for a nine-storey student accommodation block on the former site of the Independent Newspapers HQ on Middle Abbey Street. The Large Scale Residential Development application comprises a 316 student bed-space scheme and is made up of standard and accessible 272 rooms in 42 clusters ranging from five bed spaces to nine bed spaces at 87 to 93 Middle Abbey Street, known collectively as Independent House. The student spaces are to be used as short term lets during student holiday periods. The planning application comes almost one year after Summix Capital purchased Independent House from Penney’s owner, Primark, in a deal understood to be worth about €9m. The building closed in the early 2000s and has been vacant for more than two decades. Rte.ie, 30^th June

Hospitality

Hook Peninsula, Co. Wexford Oakmount has cut the price they are asking for Loftus Hall. When the property, which overlooks Hook peninsula and the landmark Hook lighthouse, was put on the market earlier this year, Colliers were guiding €4.5m. They are now guiding €3m. Oakmount is reported to have paid €1.75m for the manor-style house and 68 acres in 2022 and spent millions more on its restoration, with plans to transform it into a luxurious boutique hotel. Reputed to be Ireland’s most haunted house, it comprises a detached nine-bay, three-storey house with a total gross internal area of 26,487 sq. ft. The Irish Independent, 25^th June

Industrial

Frankfield Business Park, Cork City Joint agents Behan Irwin and Gosling and Downing Commercial are guiding €1m for a fully let property comprising five modern industrial units producing a combined gross rent roll of €89,000 pa. Located within the well-established Ballycurreen Industrial Estate, each of the units in the self-contained business park is occupied by a number of tenants. They include Fox Flowers, who have more than two years left on their lease; Hockey World, whose lease runs until 2033; and Alan Perrott Manufacturing, who hold a 10-year lease on two of the units, starting from September 2018. Individual units, which range in size from 1,950 sq. ft to 3,275 sq. ft, are generating annual rents of €19,000 – €28,000. The Examiner, 26^th June

Residential/Development

Balbriggan, Co. Dublin Park Developments has paid just over €15m for a 19.2-acre site with potential for hundreds of new homes in Balbriggan. The three lots within the holding, immediately adjacent to existing housing in the Stephenstown area of the town, are zoned in their entirety for residential use under the terms of the Fingal Development Plan 2023 – 2029. The lands are not subject to a local area plan. A feasibility study prepared by O’Mahony Pike Architects in advance of the sale suggests the site has the potential to accommodate about 322 new homes along with a purpose-built creche facility. The Stephenstown site, which is in agricultural use currently, has extensive frontage to Clonard Street, the primary arterial road from Balbriggan to the M1 motorway. The Irish Times, 25^th June

Naas Racecourse, Co. Kildare Ballymore has acquired approx. 13 acres of the lands at Naas Racecourse. The Irish Times understands that Ballymore paid upwards of €7.8m in an off-market deal for the lands which are zoned for residential use. The price paid equates to an average of €600,000 an acre, which is broadly in line with the sums being paid for zoned residential land elsewhere in Dublin’s commuter belt counties. Ballymore is expected to submit a planning application to Kildare County Council within the coming months for the development of between 250 and 300 homes on the site, consisting of a mix of houses and duplexes. The Irish Times, 25^th June

Dublin Sales Close to one fifth of all home sales in Dublin this year involved landlords selling investment properties, new research from DNG has found. DNG also expects that sales of investment properties are expected to “spike in the short to medium term as landlords decide to exit the sector” following the recent rental sector measures announced by government. DNG research has found 19% of all homes sold in the capital during the first six months of this year were landlords exiting the rental sector. DNG noted that “the main issue facing landlords going forward will be that many will no longer be able to terminate a lease in order to sell the property with vacant possession, forcing small landlords to have to wait six years to get vacant possession and large landlords will have to sell with a tenant in situ at a discounted price.” The Business Post, 25^th June

House Prices Further analysis by DNG reveals that the average price of a second-hand home in Dublin rose beyond €600,000 in the first half of this year. Data from the agency has also shown that outside Dublin, the average price of a resale home has increased to €313,453, up 8.7% in the 12 months to June 2025. In the Dublin market, where the average price of a second-hand home has risen to €600,047, price inflation has slightly slowed. Last December, average resale home prices were up 9.6% in the year, but inflation was 8% in the year to June 2025. The Business Post, 25^th June

Private Rental Sector (PRS) More than 42,000 properties have exited the PRS over the past five years, according to Sherry FitzGerald. The group’s quarterly residential analysis reported a net loss of 42,300 rental properties owned by private investors between January 2020 and March 2024. The analysis said the “ongoing trend of landlords exiting the sector has become particularly pronounced in recent years, underscoring the mounting challenges faced by the rental market”. The report found that housing transaction activity for the first quarter of 2025 increased by 1.4% compared with the same period in 2024. However, activity in the secondhand market declined by 2.1%, with 7,833 units sold in the first quarter. The report found that investor purchases only accounted for 9% of secondhand home purchases, while they made up 31% of those who sold properties. The Business Post, 30^th June

BidX1 Auctions Two properties sold for well over their guide prices at recent BidX1 auctions. The most valuable of these was a former school in Cork city. Rockboro School, Boreenmanna Road, Ballintemple, sold for €2.01m or 67.5% over its €1.2m guide price, in a receivership sale. The 11,868 sq. ft building sits on a 1.48-acre site 1.5km south-east of Cork city centre. In Wicklow, a residential investment property, Kilmurray Grove, which had failed to sell at previous auctions, sold for €722,000. Its guide price had been cut from €975,000 in September 2024 to €590,000 earlier this month. Located on the N11 in Kilmacanogue, it comprises a two-bedroom cottage, two three-bedroom houses and a terrace known as The Stables comprising a two-bedroom house and two one-bedroom houses, most of which had been generating rent. The six range in size from 570 sq. ft up to 1,100 sq. ft. The Irish Independent, 25^th June

Dublin Airport A private Irish investor has acquired a 129 acre land holding at Dunsoghly in north Dublin for €3.35m (€26k per acre). The price paid represents a 26% discount on the €4.5m Knight Frank had been guiding when it offered the property to the market in October of last year. While the lands, which are located a kilometre from the grounds of Dublin Airport and 6.5km from the airport terminal, are agricultural and laid out in tillage at present, the new owner is likely to look to have them rezoned in the future. The entire holding is zoned Objective Green Belt under the Fingal Development Plan 2023-2029. The aim of this designation is “to protect and provide for a greenbelt”. About 75 acres of the lands are located outside the Airport Public Safety Zones. The Irish Times, 25^th June

Oranmore, Galway The state will need to buy more than 300 acres of the land required for the proposed 1,000-acre semiconductor megasite in the west of Ireland. A Business Post analysis of land registry filings has shown IDA Ireland has already been actively buying land in Galway near the proposed site for more than two years. Peter Burke, the enterprise minister, is expected to bring plans to cabinet in the coming weeks that would propose development of a €3.2bn advanced semiconductor fabrication facility in Oranmore. Burke is expected to propose the use of an old Defence Forces firing range in Oranmore, which was previously identified for an Intel project in 2021 that ultimately went to Germany, for the new plant. A Business Post analysis of land registry records for Oranmore has shown state entities already control close to 671 acres on the outskirts of the town that has a population of about 6,000 people. The former Defence Forces firing range site, which is roughly 500 acres in size, represents most of the state’s land ownership in the area. The Business Post, 1^st July

If you have an article which you would like to have considered for inclusion in our next weekly report, please contact us at info@origincapital.ie

Origin Capital funds senior debt transactions in the CRE investment sector, typically in excess of €3m, and has lent over €400m to clients since April 2015.

24th June (Issue 502)